Day 58: Security

Listening: On a different day, if I was safe in my own skin, then I wouldn't feel so lost and so frightened. But this is today and I'm lost in my own skin. And I'm so lonely I don't even want to be with myself anymore.
What's my problem? I don't know where I'm going or how I'm going to get there.

Fifty eight days on the island. A third season. I really thought it would be better this year, but not so much. It's not to say that it's as bad as the place I was in Cambridge, but it's certainly not going as well as I would have hoped.

I think my winter in Cambridge shook my soul a little bit and I haven't quite recovered. It doesn't help that there's much more of an insider/outsider vibe in the kitchen this season, of which I'm on the cusp at best. Add onto that I'm not cooking my best for some reason and it becomes a pretty stressful workday.

Socially, well, I'm not all that social. I've been pocketing ninety percent of my take, doing my best to spend as little as possible. I have very limited internet access and no television. So I end up watching movies on my computer or reading. I've been reading so much that I've finished five of the seven books that I brought down to the island with me. For a while I was going through a book a week. If this continues, I'll have to be purchasing some new reading material.

Anyhow, lately I've been down a little bit thinking about my future. See, my parents are so paranoid about the future that they have passed part of it onto me to the point where sometimes I can't enjoy now because I'm too busy worrying about my future. I despise this. The only time I can really let go of it is when I'm traveling. I think that this is because when I'm traveling, the future is in such small increments of time. Where will I go tomorrow? Will I pick up and leave or will I stay another day? Should I push back my flight? I don't have to worry about my next paycheck or how I'm going to pay for my Depends when I'm old. I just have to worry about where I'm going to lay my head and what should I stuff my face with.

But I have been thinking lately.... I've been thinking about actually starting my life. How am I going to do it? What will I be doing? Where will I be? Who will I be with? How will I afford it? It sucks and I don't want to think about it. Furthermore, I have been wondering if I am, in fact, talented enough to achieve any of my potential dreams. And even if I am talented enough, will other people think I'm talented enough? How will I be able to pay to get myself off the ground?

Sometimes thinking about all of this makes it hard to keep the faith or believe in anything. Do you stay the course and potentially end up alone, broke and forgotten, or do you suck on the shotgun that is my parents' way of thinking of sell-outing-ness and security with a bland life? The ideas of either sickens me to the pit of my stomach. It makes me want to suck on the non-figurative shotgun at times (but we won't be doing that... the taste is too minerally, I'm guessing).

What do I do? What do I do?

Since I haven't really been able to find what I'm looking for in Boston, and certainly not on the island, I have been thinking about moving cities. The short list right now is San Francisco, Chicago, Portland and Seattle, mostly in that order. I can't say if I'll find what I'm looking for in any of those places, but I know that right now, Boston isn't working for me. Actually, ideally, I would be working outside of the country. How I would do that? I don't know.

Maybe I just need to go. They say that "Necessity is the mother of invention." Maybe I need to go and I need to feed myself, therefore I will find a job. If that were to happen, I know my parents would be freaking the fuck out. But the question, I would pose to them (and I am in a sense, because I know they read this) is would you rather have a child that is out there trying to make it happen, or a child who is sedentary and who wants to suck on the aforementioned shotgun? I just want to enjoy my life, including the times in between travel itineraries. But the eternal question, yet again, how will I afford those Depends?

On a subject that won't lead back to adult diapers, a number of people have told me that I should write a book. To that, I have told them that I wouldn't know what I would want to write about. I've been thinking about writing a book about leaving... leaving towns, cities, jobs, people, ideals.... That's my current thought. I even have an idea of an introduction which would summarize why they shouldn't listen to me about anything and who they should listen to. Maybe I'll start working on that.

Right now, I'm getting kicked out of the coffee shop. So, no more internet for me. Hope you enjoyed this foray back into blogging.